Forbes.com recently posted a list of the Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers. These influencers are not the powerhouses behind the world’s biggest brands or most popular celebrities. They are self-starters, motivational leaders and accessible social media experts with genuine influence over their active following. According to Peek Analytics, their individual pull, or influence, over their massive social followings ranges anywhere from 1000-3000 times greater than the average social media user.
Many of this year’s power influencers have either made social media their business, or are helping make social media your business. We connected with some of the Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers of 2013, to highlight how they’re using social media. Read Part 1 and Part 2 of “What Does it Take to Be One of the Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers?” mini series.
Ted Rubin ~ Most Followed CMO on Twitter & Leading Social Media Strategist
No.13 Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers of 2013
Twitter: @tedrubin
Bio: Chief Social Marketing Officer of Collective Bias, considered both the most followed and most interesting CMO on Twitter and author of the book “Return on Relationship”.
Ted Rubin is the Chief Social Marketing Officer of Collective Bias, a Social Shopper Media Company that drives retail sales through the coordinated creation of social media stories. He is a leading social marketing strategist and in March 2009 started using and evangelizing the term ROR, Return on Relationship, hashtag #RonR.
Many people in the social media world know Ted for his enthusiastic, energetic and undeniably personal connection to people. Ted is the most followed CMO on Twitter according to Social Media Marketing Magazine; one of the most interesting CMOs on Twitter according to Say Media, and one of this year’s Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers. ROR is the basis of his philosophy. To him, it’s all about relationships.
“Social is what I do, every day, 24/7. I use social media to build connections, engagement, relationships and value.”
How are you using HootSuite for your social media management?
Ted Rubin: I personally use HootSuite to manage my Twitter usage on my iPhone and iPad. HootSuite allows me to get the most out of Twitter when I am on the go… better than any other application I have come across.
This is critically important because Twitter gives you a view into what anyone and everyone is talking about and allows you to easily build a following. Twitter is a tool that leads to other forms of social sharing. It’s a place to lay the groundwork where other people pick up things. And although it can be used this way at times, Twitter is not a broadcast medium. It’s a seeding medium and a place to build engagement and interaction.
It is not about the quantity of people listening at once, but the ability to lay it out there for those whose attention is drawn to what you have to say at any given moment. What will set you apart from the rest and get you more valuable followers is to publish original thought provoking content on Twitter. Use Twitter as a publishing platform and provide value that few do.
Neal Schaffer ~ LinkedIn Expert & Social Media Coach for Businesses
No.33 Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers of 2013
Twitter: @NealSchaffer
Bio: Founder of Windmills Marketing social media strategy consulting, global social media conference speaker, social media coach for businesses, creator of the leading social media for business blog Maximize Social Business, a Top 35 Social Media Power Influencer and author of two (soon to be three) award-winning and critically acclaimed social media books.
Neal Schaffer spent nearly two decades in B2B sales, business development and marketing, helping companies establish themselves in competitive Asian markets. With this success in his back pocket, Neal launched his social media career in 2008, starting with his blog. In 2009, Neal published his first book, “Windmill Networking: Understanding, Leveraging & Maximizing LinkedIn” and spoke at his first of +150 speaking events.
Since launching his social media strategy consulting practice, Windmills Marketing, in 2010, he’s worked with dozens of companies, from small startups and solopreneurs to Fortune 500 enterprises and a Grammy Award-winning celebrity. He’s spoken on how to leverage social media for business on 3 continents. In 2011, Neal published his 2nd book, “Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales and Social Media Marketing,” and in September of 2013 will publish his 3rd book based on his social media strategy consulting experience, “Maximize Your Social.”
“I use social media for business. This means that I use it to promote my own business and content, to help clients do the same and to stay current on all things social media. I do all of this with both effective listening and experimenting with my own brand to discover better ways to help more businesses maximize their use of social media.”
How are you using HootSuite for your social media management?
Neal Schaffer: My daily challenge is too many social platforms and too little time. That’s where HootSuite comes in. HootSuite helps me efficiently monitor and generate greater engagement on more social media channels than any other social media dashboard out there. It allows me to easily schedule messages ahead for campaigns across a variety of different channels – and then easily view and edit them in a queue stream. But my favorite use of HootSuite, is in the less “popular” platforms of LinkedIn and Google Plus.
For LinkedIn, although I post regularly from my personal profile, the challenge is how to engage with followers of my brand new Maximize Social Business LinkedIn Company Page. It’s hard enough to maintain personal profiles, so people often forget about their LinkedIn Company Page. But for businesses, LinkedIn is an essential platform, especially as more and more decision makers turn to their LinkedIn News Feed for information. HootSuite allows me to keep on top of posting and viewing scheduled posts for my LinkedIn Company Page, and also for monitoring how my posts are doing without having to login to LinkedIn!
Google Plus is similar. I try to post when I can from my personal profile, but similar to LinkedIn Companies, I rarely make it over to my new Maximize Social Business Google Plus Brand Page. Just as HootSuite supports LinkedIn Company Pages, they do the same with Google Plus Brand Pages – and I can think of no other social media dashboard at HootSuite’s price point that allows you to manage both! That’s why every HootSuite user should take advantage and maximize their use of this awesome tool by promoting their company on these two platforms! The cool thing about HootSuite is that it supports things like *bold text* as well as #hashtags, which display on Google Plus via HootSuite the same way they do natively! In case you missed it, a recent study indicated that Google Plus +1’s are more important than Facebook Shares or ReTweets for search engine rankings, so this in itself should be a great reminder to leverage HootSuite for your Google Plus activity.
Obviously there’s a lot more to HootSuite than just LinkedIn Company Page and Google Plus Brand Pages, but are you so busy that you’re missing out on the potential? At least with HootSuite, when you need them to help manage your platform, rest easy that they will be the first to support it.
Thank you Ted Rubin and Neal Schaffer for participating!
Want to know one thing these influencers have in common? They all use HootSuite. Try it now for free.